A Bigly Bad Press Day. May's EU Citizen Promise. Samsung Forced Start Solution.

Section of a human tooth 

President Trump is having a bigly bad day.  Trying to do the right thing, he puts foot in mouth again with a well meant but unfortunate remark to a grieving widow about her dead husband, Sgt. La David Johnson who was killed in Niger: "He knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt." Whether true or not, trying to counter the criticism has left him only digging himself deeper into a hole and arousing this plea from Karen Meredith, Gold Star and Military Families coordinator for VoteVets.

"Mr. Trump, stop. Please, just stop. This is not about you, it is about them. It is about all of us who lost our loved ones in war. For once in your life, please stop making everything about you. For once in your life, at least pretend to know what empathy is. For once in your life, at least try to care about other people and their feelings."

At least his unpopularity has  peaked and been roughly level at 55% for the past 80 days (popularity around 40 % according to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/). At times it must seem, as he looks out of the safety of the Oval Office, as if vultures are constantly circling the White House with hyena packs sniffing outside the door.

Rising numbers of senior politicians are seeking to introduce changes to the proposed EU Withdrawal bill. They want to ring-fence the possible Henry VIII powers and perhaps include a statement or two that would effectively prevent a hard Brexit. Discussions on the bill planned for this week have been quietly postponed till November. However, softer mood music comes wafting across the Channel . There is talk in the Guardian that at the meeting of leaders of the other 26 EU nations later this week they will talk up her efforts, whilst still refusing to widen the Brexit negotiations to include trade until there is further progress. In turn, Theresa May used Facebook to promise to make it as easy as possible for EU citizens to remain in the UK after Brexit. 

With Jane's text warning of traffic problems, I decided to cycle the 5 miles for my dental check up in town. Apparently I will have to sacrifice a molar. The ride in was deceptively easy on what seemed to be a wind-still day. I had to cycle back in a lower gear as there was just enough of a breeze to make the return journey seem a couple of miles longer.

Today's successes were finally completing the Bulletin, to go to the printer's tomorrow, and finding out how to force start a Samsung tablet so that a special person can read this blog on it tomorrow! See solution 1 here http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/support/skp/faq/1079486. Thanks heavens we did not have to go for a factory reset.